Makhnivka is a village in the Koziatyn Raion of the Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine, located on the west bank of the Hnylopiat River. It was named Komsomolske in 1935-2016. Prior to the establishment of the Soviet regime the place was considered to be a town.
Geography
Makhnivka is in central Ukraine, south-southeast of Berdychiv and southwest of Kyiv. It is located in forest steppe zone of the Dnieper Upland. The former town is near a wide spot in the Hnylopiat river, a tributary of Teteriv River where several small streams feed into it from both sides.
The first mention of Jews in Makhnivka came in 1648, in an account from the Cossack-Polish War, when Chmielnicki's Cossacks attacked the local fortress and murdered a number of Poles and Jews. Over 100 years later, in 1765, six Jews are recorded in Makhnivka. Upon the Partition of Poland, territories including western Ukraine were annexed into the Russian Empire. Orthodox Tsarist Russia, which was intolerant of Jews, suddenly acquired a significant Jewish population in the territories annexed from Catholic Poland. As a result, the Pale of Settlement was created, generally restricting Jews to living in the new territories, but not in "Russia proper". Jews during this period had a generally harder time, at best being isolated, and at worst being visited with pogroms. In the census of 1897, the village of Makhnivka had 2,435 Jews out of a total population of 5,343. On an 1845 Russian map, "Machnowka" was the chief city of the Machnowka uyezd in Kiev guberniya, while Berdychiv was just a small town in Zhytomyr county of Volhynian Governorate. When the railroads were developed, the railroad went through Berdychiv and Koziatyn, but bypassed Makhnivka. This caused Makhnivka to decline, while both Berdychiv and Koziatyn grew. Sometime around the turn of the century, Berdychiv was separated from Volhynian Governorate and joined to Kiev Governorate, replacing Makhnivka as the chief city of the county. By the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the Jewish population of Makhnivka had dwindled to 843. The Germans captured the town on 14 July 1941 and on 9 Sept. executed 835 Jews in the Zhezhelevsk forest from Komsomolske. A Hasidic dynasty was established in Makhnivka in the early 20th century. It continues to flourish in Israel.
In the village is buried Polish song writerTomasz Padura who is being assumed as an author of Polish-Ukrainian song Hej Sokoly about Cossacks of Ukraine.
